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Talk Stephen King is one of the most prolific Stephen King Fan blogs out there. I visit the website on a regular basis and have had a link to Talk Stephen King in the sidebar of this blog for as long as its existed. That is why I am happy to announce that I have joined the ranks of a few other Stephen King bloggers that I have a great deal of respect for and greatly admire by being interviewed for Talk Stephen King. I’m hoping that David over at Talk Stephen King will take me up on my offer to join me for an episode of the Stephen King Fancast in the near future. Now that I’ve allowed my severely over swelled ego to babble all over the page, I would like to encourage you to head over to Talk Stephen King and check out the interview. While you’re there, you should subscribe to his blog in the same way that you do here. CLICK HERE to head over and check it out!

If you are a listener of the Stephen King Fancast, you already know that I prefer audiobooks over books. I find that, when I’m reading, my mind tends to wander and I end up re-reading a lot of passages and still don’t fully under the story once I have finished the book. When I listen to the audiobook, I am enthralled and allowed to play the mind movie game, which is my favorite part about books, while still grasping the story. That being said, I recently got an email from someone who wanted to get into listening to audiobooks and they were asking what a good place to start would be. That got me thinking about this topic, and I wanted to put up a post about what my favorite Stephen King audiobooks are, and why.

This is a tough topic for me to cover, because there are qualities of the audiobook (reader, tempo, etc.) that have no bearing on the story but add a sense of gravitas that outweighs the story, in a way. As an example, I will say that anyone that has listened to Frank Muller read an audiobook, will probably admit that they would gladly listen to him describing disturbing fetish porn, in great detail, and love every minute of the reading. He is VERY good! I actually had to attempt to exclude some books from this list, simply because they are read by Frank Muller, and I would be biased towards them. This wouldn’t be a very good list if it were just, “The first four Dark Tower’s and Black House” as a Top 5. So I am trying to give a fair assessment in the interest of great story tellers, telling great stories. I am also basing my assessment on the idea that you haven’t really listened to a lot of audiobooks, and would like some variety to try out. One quality that all of the readers listed here share, is just being a great reader. You ever see a movie in which the actors are overdoing the role and ruining it in the process? A great actor makes you believe that they actually are the character they are portraying. The same can be said about a person that isn’t good at reading aloud, if not done well, you can just mess the whole thing up.

As River Song would say, *SPOILERS* My number one is not, actually, a Dark Tower Book. Well… I guess that could be argued.

As a comic book fan, I really enjoy Joe Hill‘s “Locke & Key” series. I get them in THB (that means Trade HardBack, for all you non-comic nerds) as soon as they come out. As a Joe Hill fan and a Stephen King fan, I am pleased to say that “Locke & Key” has been nominated for IGN’s Best of 2011 Awards! Take a minute to head over to IGN’s site and give “Locke & Key” your votes!

Stephen King announced last month that his foundation would match up to $70,000 if the listeners of the 3 Bangor area radio stations he owns would match it, making the total donation $140,000.

This fundraising effort exceeded his expectations when an anonymous Californian offered to donate an additional $50,000 if King would match that. King, being a Mainer himself, agreed to the terms, making the total donation $240,000.

This effort apparently came about due to the federal government’s announcement that it would only be contributing $23 Million to heating oil assistance programs, rather than the $55.6 Million that it contributed last winter.

As you may know, King has finished his work on the newest Dark Tower novel called “The Wind Through the Keyhole” and is also being referred to by many as Dark Tower 4.5, because it’s place in the series is between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla, the 4th and 5th books in the series, respectively. With such a huge following, this Dark Tower Novel is bound to sell like hotcakes!

Well, I have something for you. Call it an early Christmas Present, if you like. You have already seen the picture within this article, I’m sure, and that it part of the present. You are looking at the cover to the Grant Edition of DT4.5. That is not all…

In a previous post, I stated that I was hoping to do a site re-build and add a bunch of new features for readers of this blog, listeners of the podcast and viewers of the Movie Club. I got a pretty good response from people about wanting to contribute to these changes and to help out in any way they can. I have decided to layout for you exactly what changes that, in an ideal world, I would be making to the Stephen King Fancast and why. Before I start hounding you for money, here’s the story.

Since this blog originally started as just a podcast, I was perfectly OK with having a free-hosted blog, or three of them, for that matter. This blog has taken on new aspects that I feel are deserving of a re-branding and a re-building. The podcast is no longer the sole function of this blog. I have taken on a writer (by now you are surely familiar with Luanne and her wonderfully witty articles here and on the other SK Fancast blogs) and I am looking to take on one or two more bloggers. I have also started a YouTube show dedicated to Stephen King Movies, called the Stephen King Movie Club, and even with only a single episode out, I have seen growth in this blog. The point being, I feel like I am doing a dis-service to these other aspects of this site by keeping it under the Stephen King Fancast brand. It’s time to take it up a notch and make this site into a legitimate fan site.